


Runaway

by Natterina



Series: Soulmarked [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Feels, Fluff, Just a really nice one to make up for all the angsty shit I keep coming out with, M/M, Post-Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 09:39:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10637214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natterina/pseuds/Natterina
Summary: Lea knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that somewhere out there Roxas is alive.AU, takes place after Dream Drop Distance.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the much-requested sequel to Yearning! You don't need to have read that fic to get this one (as it's Soriku), though it is much clearer on how the Names work. Essentially: white = alive, blue = in the darkness, black = dead/doesn't exist.  
> I leaned more towards the manga Roxas in this, as I love how he was before everything goes to pot in 358/2.

The name on Lea’s wrist is white.

It takes him a while to get used to it, to seeing that Name a bright and pretty _white_ , instead of the black and blue he used to see.

He remembers growing up as a child eager for his Name to turn up, only to hit puberty and wake one morning with a black scar, a deep but elegant Name carved into the soft skin in the lines where his hand meets his wrist. Lea remembers the disappointment, the day that he learned that a black name denoted _death_. Lea remembers the loneliness, at seeing everyone around him so _excited_ at the thought of meeting their Name, and the long nights spent in his room with his fingers tracing over the letters, wondering what had happened to them. He vividly remembers the day he vowed to make himself unforgettable. If he has no destined living in this world, then he would make sure he made an impact in other ways.

Lea recalls waking up as a nobody with that still black-scar on his wrist, until several years into his new existence when, inexplicably, he wakes up with the Name a deep and sharp _blue_.

It had been Zexion who had explained to him that, as an apprentice to Ansem the Wise, he and his colleagues had discovered that a deep blue name meant _alive_ , but existing in darkness.

One week later, and Axel meets Roxas.

He remembers everything about that day, from the scuff on his boots to the reflection of his false smile in Roxas’ dimmed eyes. Lea remembers his long fingers running over the raised scar, as he clamped down feelings he should not have had and determined right there and then to never tell Roxas the truth.

 _Roxas_.

The boy who had become his best friend, who had wormed his way into Axel’s non-existent heart and settled there with that innocent goofy grin and his wide blue eyes. Roxas, whose name had been etched into Axel’s wrist since he was fourteen, the letters neat and elegant with the unusual flourish on the ‘x’.

It had stayed blue even when Roxas joined with Sora, something that had given Axel such insurmountable _hope_ : if it was blue, it meant he was alive _somewhere_ , even if he was perpetually out of reach and trapped within Sora.

Lea recalls dying, and feeling the surge of sorrow and grief at realising that he never _would_ see Roxas again, that there really _wasn’t_ anyone out there who would look down at their wrist and see _Lea_ written in rushed square letters. The only one who ever  _had_ seen it hadn't known the owner sat beside him each evening, and he is long gone.

And he remembers waking, wearing the clothes he had died in but with _Roxas_ stamped there on his wrist in a bright white scar, the skin around it pink as though it were fresh. He remembers relief laced with confusion, because Roxas is still _in_ Sora insofar as he is aware.

He remembers grief, because Ienzo had stood beside him with a blue and bruised wrist, with Demyx nowhere to be found.

* * *

Lea doesn’t do much about it, at first.

He tries to train, more than freaked out at the fact that he now has the ability to wield a keyblade, but he initially finds it uncomfortable to train with Kairi knowing that he kidnapped her once. But Kairi is more forgiving than most, and by the seventh or eighth time that he tries to apologise to her she smacks him _hard_ in the gut with the flat of her keyblade and demands he _shut up_ and earn her forgiveness, rather than beg for it.

Lea promptly does so.

He finds it hard to summon the keyblade at all: his instincts compel him to summon his chakrams before the keyblade, and so Lea finds himself having to constantly switch between the two. In the heat of battle, he will have no time to stand there for five minutes trying to summon the keyblade, and so Merlin is forgiving those times when Lea fails to summon it.

His flames are as easy to use as they have always been, however, and together with Merlin he has acquired a unique fighting style using both the keyblade and his flames. More than once he has singed off the hair on Kairi’s arms, and they both try to forget the rather mortifying time he had set her training pants on fire.

Lea fights with the Bond of Flames keychain, on those occasions he had actually managed to summon the keyblade. Sora had sent it to him, roughly a month after Xehanort had tried to take his heart, and Lea tries to find hope in the significance of the gesture.

He is fighting Kairi in the courtyard of the Castle when his wrist burns, one month after Riku frees Master Aqua from the Darkness.

Kairi is heading towards him with her keyblade raised high; what she lacks in strength she more than makes up for in speed, and he _knows_ she will leap and throw that blade at him when she gets close enough. Her quick grasp of magic is even more impressive than her grasp of the keyblade, and Lea knows the blow will hurt if she propels it with wind behind it.

And so Lea raises his own blade to block the blow, but before his arm is fully extended the tingle starts. It is mild at first, and Kairi jumps in preparation for her finishing blow, before the pain lances through Lea’s skin and causes him to drop his keyblade to the floor.

Kairi’s blow never hits: she drops to the floor in front of him with a grunt as her keyblade hovers in the air above them, and Lea grips at his wrist tightly as the pain radiates along his arm. It feels as it should have done when his Name first appeared, like someone taking a hot carving knife and dragging it across the skin. Kairi stands opposite him as he grits his teeth in agony, chewing her lip between her teeth as she watches him with worry on her features.

The feeling passes, and Lea uncovers his wrist and stares at it with uncertainty. The scar is more raised than it usually is, and the skin around it is a healthy but bright pink, but aside from that there is no difference in the scar and Lea is genuinely confused as to why it has started to hurt.

Kairi, on the other hand, is not.

She has met Roxas, no matter how briefly, and she _knows_ he is the nobody of Sora. She _also_ knows what a love-struck fool looks like, after so long watching Riku and Sora dance around each other for years. Kairi is well aware that Lea’s Name reads _Roxas_ , and with a flourish of her hand she bids her keyblade to disappear.

“He’s alive.”

Lea grunts as he runs a hand through his sweat-soaked hair.

“He can’t be, it’s impossible.”

Kairi shakes her head, feeling frustration begin in the pit of her stomach. She will _not_ sit here and watch another man dance and deny what his Name is telling him. She had enough of that with Sora and Riku, and her patience for these Names is wearing thin.

Her life is so much simpler, with a Name on her wrist that belongs to no one she actually knows. She wonders if she will ever meet him, the man out there named _Ventus_ who has _Kairi_ etched into his own wrist.

“Well, Lea, he obviously _is_ , else your wrist wouldn’t look like that!”

“Damnit Kairi, we should be sparring.”

Kairi stares at him for only a moment, scepticism on her face at the harshness of his tone, before she shrugs.

“Fine, sit and mope. But I’m not sparring anymore.” With that, she yanks off her headband and tucks it into her belt, grabbing her water bottle from it as she does so. Her eyes, so defiant and _daring_ , watch him as he watches _her_ in disbelief.

“You can’t just _refuse_ to spar-“

“Watch me.” She heads over to a broken bit of wall and sits on it, her legs just long enough to reach the floor. “Go find Roxas. Then we’ll spar.” Kairi’s smile is sweet, but Lea has known her for long enough now that he is well aware she’ll drag him into the Castle by his ears if he’s not careful.

“I don’t even know where he is!”

“I bet Ienzo does.” She takes a defiant drink from her bottle, gaze never leaving Lea’s, and he throws up his hands into the air in frustration.

“ _Fine_ , you scheming little _witch_. And to think I ever used to wonder where Namine got it from.”

Kairi’s response is a loud giggle that bursts from her lips without restraint, and Lea laughs at the joy in her voice.

Perhaps, somewhere in there, Namine is laughing too, remembering her drawings of black gloved hands intertwined as Roxas searched in vain for a mysterious _Lea_ , never knowing they sat beside each other every evening and watched the sunset.

* * *

Ienzo does not look up as Lea tears into the laboratory twenty minutes later, cleaned and dressed with a backpack on his shoulders.

Lea would find that weird, except he remembers when _Zexion_ never used to so much as flinch when Demyx did the same to him, and he figures that years living with the blond water nymph would desensitise him to loud noises and abrupt entrances.

“Roxas is alive.” Lea says it calmly into the quiet of the lab, and the silence is immediate. The tapping of Ienzo’s long fingers on the keyboard stills, and the slate-haired man turns slowly in the swivel chair. He pulls his glasses off his face carefully, without mussing the hair up, and fixes a clear gaze on Lea.

“Clarify.”

Lea does. He launches into an explanation, of the Name burning halfway through his training session with Kairi, and how Kairi is convinced it means that Roxas has come into himself again. Ienzo’s right eyebrow raises with every word, until Lea is quite concerned it will fly off his forehead if he doesn’t finish his tale soon. When he does, Ienzo sits back in his chair, one hand cupping his chin in thought.

Lea notices the thick white bandage that wraps around his forearm, and a pang of pity sweeps through him.

“I think it’s certainly possible. Although, I don’t understand _why_ you didn’t go looking for him sooner, when I advised you to.” Ienzo gives him a pointed look at that, and Lea shrugs.

“I didn’t want to hope. Why didn’t you go running off after Demyx?”

It is a low blow, and Lea notices how Ienzo almost _flinches_ at it, his eyes flickering down to his painful wrist. He is barely able to use it, the bruising is so _bad_ , and Ienzo has spent the last several months trying to understand what could possibly have happened to Demyx’s somebody to cause it do _this_.

Lea reckons Demyx has been taken over as a vessel, just like Isa, but Ienzo refuses to entertain that possibility. Lea thinks he should, because his hand is a fucking _mess_.

“Point taken.” Ienzo dips his head and rubs at his right hand: Lea can see that the bruising has spread past the palm, and fears for a moment that this could _actually_ kill the other man. Before he can raise the issue, however, Ienzo speaks again. “I’m struggling to see what any of this has to do with me.”

Lea laughs.

“Oh _please_. If anyone in that Organization was predictable, it was you and Vexen. I know for a _fact_ you’ve put some sort of data-collection and tracking device on Sora’s gummi ship, after he came here trying to track down Riku and Aqua.”

Ienzo has the grace to look a little scandalised, but Lea merely smirks and stares at him pointedly until Ienzo clears his throat softly.

“It was in the interest of _scientific research_. All those worlds; I would have been a fool not to take the opportunity.”

Lea waves his hand.

“Yeah yeah, don’t care. So you _do_ know where they are?”

Ienzo’s lips purse briefly before he puts his glasses back on, eyebrows narrowed.

“I can track down Sora, if that is what you’re asking.”

Lea sighs, because he knows what is coming. Ienzo is not a generous man, nor is he particularly mean-spirited, but even he has a stake in Sora’s mission. Four of those silhouettes, when Lea had met Xehanort and his vessels, had looked unnervingly familiar, after all.

“If I come across Demyx, I promise I’ll do everything I can to save him.”

Ienzo’s eyes narrow briefly, before he turns in his chair and looks back at the computer screen he was working on. Lea watches for several minutes as Ienzo locates the tracking device he had planted on the gummi ship and then narrows down its most likely location.

When the exact location appears on the screen, Ienzo looks over the rim of his glasses up at Lea.

“Castle Oblivion.”

“ _What?_ What the fuck are they doing there?”

Eyebrows furrowing, both at Lea’s language and at the co-ordinates showing on the screen, Ienzo lifts his hand and opens a corridor of darkness right there in the lab.

“Go and find out.”

Lea grumbles under his breath, reaching down into his backpack to pull out the huge Organization coat that would keep him protected. Kairi had placed some sort of spell on the bag that meant he could fit his stuff in easily without it weighing much, but even still it seems to decrease in weight with the heavy coat gone.

“Y’know…” Lea starts, and Ienzo turns to look at him from his chair. “You can just _admit_ you care. I’m worried for him too man; it won’t kill you.”

Ienzo’s laugh is more of a soulless bark, tinged with the bitter disappointment of a man who has accepted that there is something horribly wrong with his Name. Even Xemnas had never faced such uncertainty: Lea had glimpsed a deep blue _Aqua_ on his left wrist, and a faded blackened Name on his right, but even with two Names they hadn’t bruised and all but cut-off everyday function.

“I’d rather not hope, if it’s all the same to you.”

Lea watches him as he turns away to look back at his computer screen, but Lea knows that he is not taking anything in. Ienzo has the look of a man deep in thought, and Lea can only sigh before he walks through the portal.

He’d probably be the same, he guesses, if there was any possibility of Roxas being one of the unknown vessels.

* * *

When he steps through the portal to Castle Oblivion, Lea gapes at it in shock, because the husk of a castle before him is _not_ what he remembers.

There is none of the cold white marble and stark blank walls with no gardens to speak of. Instead, Lea steps out into an overgrown garden and stares up and a half-battered brick castle with colourful walls and huge windows and yellow frames, and briefly wonders if he’s ended up at some alternate version of Yen Sid’s tower.

It’s not, because there is Riku and Sora and Master Aqua, and between them-

“What the _fuck_.” Is all Lea can say, really, as he stares at a veritable clone of Roxas. He knows it definitely isn’t _Roxas_ despite the totally identical form, because the armour on the left arm is all wrong and the half-conscious boy looks up at him through lidded eyes with vague recognition.

Lea freaks out, because looking at the boy makes him _remember_ the boy, and how the _shitting hell_ did he not realise that Roxas was the double of that keyblade wielder he had fought in Radiant Garden so long ago? And why the fuck did Roxas look like him, and not Sora?

“Hey, Axel! Erm, _Lea_. Sorry, still getting used to that! What’re you doing here?” Sora lets go of the blond, and Lea doesn’t miss how _Aqua_ picks up the slack and not Riku.

In fact, Riku rather looks as freaked out as Lea does right now, and it’s less comforting that he would like.

“It’s not Roxas.” Riku says before Sora can open his mouth again, and the sombre look in Riku’s eyes makes Lea think he has more to add to it. “His heart was trapped inside Sora’s. Probably why Roxas came out looking like him.”

Riku moves closer than Sora had, a small smile on his face, and Lea could smack it off if he were still stuck living the anger that had nearly consumed Axel.

“He’s free, Lea.”

A growl escapes Lea’s throat.

“Then where is he?”

And part of Lea does feel a bit sorry for Riku: he knows, from conversations with the younger man and from his own observations during the year that Sora was sleeping, that Riku’s decision to take Roxas by force was a difficult one for him. It was a decision that still causes guilt in Riku’s heart, that plagues his dreams and his soul, even though he thought it necessary. Riku had known, perhaps even before Axel and Roxas had known, that they weren’t just heartless shells.

And even Axel, consumed with anger and fury at Riku at the time, can see that guilt. Lea had dropped his anger the moment he looked down at a white Name on his wrist: Riku had not yet shaken off this particular sorrow.

“We don’t know where he is, Lea. It was his heart, though, I’m sure of it.”

Lea frowns. Where would Roxas go, in the midst of a panic? Where was his safe harbour, his port of call in the midst of such an uncertainty? Lea doesn’t even know where he himself would flee to, let alone Roxas.

Lea runs his hands through his spikes, frustrated at his inability to track down his best friend, the young man who had stirred feelings in his chest that he should not have even had in the first place. He tries to think of Roxas _before_ he’d turned bitter, when he was wide-eyed at the world and eager to make friends with everyone, when he would laugh and joke and make even a rainy day feel like sunshine.

Lea pauses.

“I know where he is.”

Riku doesn’t even get the chance to ask, before Lea opens a dark corridor and vanishes through it.

* * *

When he arrives at the bricked-up doorway, after an hour of searching the town, the first thing Lea does is tear off the horrible, heavy leather coat.

Then he summons the keyblade, and starts smashing the bricks with as much strength as he can muster. He breaks through fairly quickly; the door opens inwards, if he remembers correctly, and so he only needs enough space to slide through.

The inside of Twilight Town’s clock tower is cool but stagnant, and Lea’s very presence disturbs several cobwebs and some rather unhappy critters that scurry away at the light.

When Lea reaches the top of the tower and exits through the rickety door, the sun is beginning to set on the horizon. He would find it poetic, in an odd sort of way, if he wasn’t so damn _jittery_ with anticipation.

Because he turns left, around the square of the top of the tower, and holds his breath as the west-facing side comes into view. There, sitting on the edge of the tower in the clothes he had been wearing the last time they saw each other, is Roxas. And it is _him_ , Lea can feel it in his bones and in the deepest depths of his heart; the relief is almost overwhelming, and he would _run_ at him if he didn’t think it would make him look like such a _pansy_.

Roxas turns, silhouetted in the sunset, and his smile makes Lea wonder if he has known he was on his way all along. He takes a slow step forward, unable to believe after so long convincing himself he would never see Roxas again, but Roxas pats the space beside him.

Lea takes it with the familiarity of Axel, one long leg dangling over the edge of the tower with the other bent up to his chest. He stares at Roxas, at the curve of his jaw and the point of his nose, but Roxas keeps his gaze on the sunset before them.

Lea breaks the silence.

“So, you really are alive.”

Roxas responds with a huff of laughter, breath coming out steadily as he closes his eyes and shakes his head, lips quirked in a smile.

“Yeah, I had a pretty hard time believing it too.”

“But how? I mean, not that I’m complaining.” Lea laughs half-heartedly, still unable to look away from Roxas. He’d forgotten how much he loved this image, Roxas’ face in the fading light with the sunset and the rest of Twilight Town behind him. The only thing they’re missing is their Organization coats and sea-salt ice-cream.

Roxas shrugs, and turns to look at him. Lea notices how his eyes fall onto his un-tattooed cheeks.

“I don’t know, but I’m not going back. I don’t think he needs me back, but I’m not going back.” Roxas’ gaze drags from Lea’s lips up to his eyes, and he cocks his head to the side. “And I could say the same to you. You died, I _watched_ you die and I couldn’t do anything about it except fight Sora in his mind, and then I gave up and sat back. But when I saw you alive again, I couldn’t stay in there.”

Lea’s not really sure what to say to that, the meaning of the words so weighty and _significant_. Roxas is making it sound like he came back _for him_ , and Lea isn’t well versed enough in this to respond, so he settles for what is familiar: joking.

“Aw, Rox, be careful, you’re making it sound like you care.”

Roxas’ response is to punch him in the arm, nothing more than a playful hit, but it comes with a warning that he is serious.

“Shut up, ass.” He turns his gaze back to the sunset, and Lea notices for the first time that he is fiddling with the band on his left wrist. Roxas used to do that all of the time, fiddle with the black ribbon Zexion had placed around all of their wrists, and Axel would sit beside him for hours _agonising_ over whether or not he should just spit it out and tell Roxas his name had been Lea.

He remembers that night Roxas left, the rain lashing down around them, desperate to shout after Roxas that no, _he_ would miss him because his name was _Lea_ , the Name on Roxas’ wrist. He had been so careful never to take his gloves off near Roxas, and he had never regretted it more than in that moment.

Lea is not expecting it when Roxas yanks hard at the black and white chequered band, pulling it over his fingers in a rough tug that draws Lea’s eyes immediately to the Name.

It doesn’t look like he expects it to. It _is_ his handwriting, and the letters are neat and square, and so perhaps the surprise is simply because Lea never _ever_ expected to see his Name on someone’s wrist.

“Rox, there’s something you need to know-“

Roxas cuts him off with a wave of his hand, though his smile is relaxed and confident. It is a contrast to Lea, who genuinely feels like he’s never felt this nervous in his _life_.

“That your name’s Lea?”

And Lea feels like his world has been sucked out from underneath him, because _how_ in the ever-loving _fuck_ does Roxas know that? His confusion must show on his face, for Roxas starts laughing at him, so hard that his body shakes.

“Hey, mind quitting with the laughing and explaining to me how you knew?”

But Roxas, still grinning like that stupid cat from Wonderland, reaches out for Axel’s right wrist and lifts it, fingers going for the edge of the glove.

“Axel, your name was four letters long, and I knew we only had the ‘x’ in our names because we were nobodies. That leaves three; it didn’t take me too long to make the connection.”

When Roxas puts it that way, Lea feels kind of stupid. He swivels on the edge, so that his bent leg lowers onto the inside of the tower as he straddles it, left hand resting on the cool brick in front of him. His right hand is still in Roxas’.

“Why’d you keep quiet?”

“Why did you?” Roxas counters. “I had your somebody’s Name. You had _mine_.”

Lea finds he can’t give an answer to that, but Roxas busies himself with pulling off the black glove on his right hand. Holding his breath, his body tense as Roxas peels it off, Lea watches him as the skin of his wrist comes into view.

Roxas laughs, throwing the glove off the tower, and traces it with his finger.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever written my name down before. All those mission reports were pre-filled out.”

There is a shock running up their connected arms, radiating from the wrist upwards. Lea supposes it is how two Names are supposed to recognise each other, but all he can focus on is Roxas, sitting before him with a grin on his face and _Lea_ on his wrist.

Lea does the only thing he really _can_ do. He pulls the left glove off and reaches out with both hands, sliding them along Roxas’ jaw until his thumbs hook around his ears, and pulls him forwards into a searing kiss.

Lea can hardly believe he is _finally_ doing what he had wanted to do since the moment he realised he and Roxas were _friends_ , and the blond’s reaction is immediate. There is no hesitation, no shock or stillness of his body as he tries to process what is going on. No, Roxas slides along the edge of the tower effortlessly, until he can comfortably fist his hands in the fabric of Lea’s jacket, and settles there between Lea’s legs. His lips part beneath Lea’s, deepening the kiss as it moves from soft and sweet to hurried and urgent. Lea doesn’t want to let go, lest Roxas disappear the moment he releases him, and Roxas is quite content to pull Lea closer, the risk of falling off the tower be-damned.

Lea pulls back first, because as much as he’d rather stay there and let Roxas kiss him to within an inch of his life, it is getting _too_ hot and they still have to _breathe_. Roxas follows him though, planting one last kiss on his lips before his eyes flutter open, and _Kingdom Hearts_ Lea could drown in that gaze if Roxas would let him. He releases him, hands dropping down to his thighs in absence of any _space_ between them, but Roxas keeps his hands in Lea’s jacket and rests his forehead on Lea's collarbone.

“Will you come back with me this time? Or do I need to start a fight with you again?”

Roxas laughs, though Lea feels one of his hands tighten in the fabric of his jacket as Roxas remembers that painful final confrontation.

“Jerk. I’ll come with you; not like I’ve got anywhere better to go, huh?”

“Thanks, asshole.” There’s no harshness in Lea’s words, however, and Roxas laughs it off easily with a shake of his head.

Lea feels like there needs to be some grand outpouring of love, but that is not Roxas’ way, and he knows that being _here_ is enough. Sitting on the clock tower, with Roxas _alive_ and warm and with a heartbeat, relaxing before him with those deep blue eyes that he had never thought he’d see again. Lea thinks he doesn’t even need to understand how Roxas is back; the fact that he is will be enough. There is much to talk about, fights that were never resolved and hurts that thrum beneath the skin, but for now Lea will simply _enjoy_ the sight of Roxas, alive and silhouetted in the sunset.

All they’re missing is sea-salt ice-cream.

“I missed you, buddy.”

“Yeah, I missed you too.”


End file.
